Just noticed a new YT video by Rivet showing some routebuilding. Haven't watched fully, just scanned it, but it seems to be quite a nice usable edtior, which after a few hours study would be quite navigable. What was the main reason why it can't be released to the public? Was it something to do with assets built in being payware (such as speedtree)? Apologies if I've completly missed the point on this, I'm sure there was a decent explanation. To be honest, I'd pay for an editor, would be interested to hear whether other folks would do too.
It was to do with the way Epic Games's licensing for the unreal engine works I think. If you just release an editor into the wild, how does Epic get their cut? That's why third parties have to go through DTG for tsw.
Licensing is likely the main reason. My personal opinion is that they made their calculus and the results are that if they release a public editor they lose too much money due to talented people using such powerful tools to build really good content.
I was equally impressed by the Google Street View on the RhB rails, of which I was previously unaware, though it seems to have been taken nearly 10 years ago! https://maps.googleblog.com/2012/03/take-train-through-swiss-alps-with.html
It's stricter than that, the TSW editor is literally the UE4 editor with some proprietary plug-ins, so they need a license from Epic to release those plug-ins I believe, and it seems Epic aren't granting it.
Not true. Epic got only one rule and that is: editor needs to be distributed by their Epic Launcher and im sure it still is for the partner program (if there is any). Editor can include many plugins, if they are payware then you will need to buy them, you can still use editor without them of course. I agree with Trenomarcus that they dont release the editor because community will make much better stuff then they do. They even disable cooking in the editor so even nobody from partner program cant release stuff without DTG, it has to always go thru them and if they dont like then you just waste your time, they will not release it... Second problem is consoles, they will cry that PC users got so much stuff and they dont. Just look here how they sometimes complain on the discussion that they still dont have all HMA layers.
Licensing - Epic and the people who say that DTG can use their trains and logos in game Consoles - DTG took a standpoint a couple of years back that TSW should feel the same on all platforms wherever possible. There are a couple of things which stop this, mainly down to console hardware deficiencies and console manufacturer restrictions, hence why no raildriver support on consoles Control - DTG get to say who develops and releases what, because even 2nd and 3rd parties have to release to console via DTGs channels, only PC gets direct mods. And let's face it 3rd party is a wreck and mess on TSC with dozens of orphaned skins and assets - as in people had them, the website went bust or author left the scene, or the author decides they want to make sure you only use their assets in their scenarios meaning you spend hundreds of pounds on their stuff to run a simple scenario.
Having an editor means having the certainty that the game will perform even worse. On TS it's a mess to have a "free" route, already you need paid routes and then a million assets which are everywhere on the web and in the majority of cases it does not work correctly. In short the editor no thank you, the game is very good like that.
Agreed, though there are some pretty good free routes for Train Simulator, it's hard to find them through a whole mess of stuff that has different quality and often an extremely long list of all kind of dependencies. Not releasing an editor does prevent this mess, and gives us some sort of quality control. I do hope a few more talented people get access to the editor though.
Sam has said before that he wants it to be easier for talented people to have access to the editor, he thinks it's too hard at the moment.
Thats the most annoying part on TSC. It is a whole cluster there. Almost every scenario depends on like 10 other 3rd party assets, easily worth hundreds of EUROS just to run scenario X Y Z. I really hope that TSW will never become into like this. I actually don't think it's bad that the whole editor issnt public yet, and that everything has to be released through DTG. Edited by DTG Natster - Watch your language
In TS the editor is part of the software. In TSW the editor can’t be part of the software because the UE game engine and editor are separate things. To release “The Editor” is therefore much more complex an issue which for multiple reasons, not one reason, it can’t be done easily. Licensing, security, access to proprietary bits and bobs, legal issues, potential for misuse. The lot. Rivet have it because they have signed a bunch of papers and have to abide by many rules. DTG wanted to release the editor so conspiracy theories that they won’t because someone might make better stuff than them are balderdash.
One of the reasons I pretty much stopped building routes in TS20xx and switched to Trainz for that branch of the hobby. You just end up ticking too many developer boxes to get the assets you need, you fight the assets which have been made "difficult" to use by their developers and that's before you start including freeware from various sources, some of which can't be redistributed thus sending the potential end user on a scavenger hunt - assuming the site hasn't vanished overnight. I'm in two minds about an editor for TSW. On the one hand it would be nice to see what some of the more talented route builders could come up with but on the other, if it's going to be an even bigger cluster fudge for assets then not worth the hassle. It's also a given that an ancient copy of 3D Canvas/Crafter and Paint Shop Pro 7 isn't going to cut it for making your own 3D models, even simple stuff like station signs.
Given that DTG have been advertising for a "3rd party UE technical support assistant" there may well be some more 3rd party devs coming onstream, and certainly Sam has said several times that he would like to see a 3rd party developer "stream to DTG", ie a way that such people can legitimately get on board and publish their stuff in the usual manner rather than through several unmoderated mod sites that only 33% of the userbase can use (if they can be bothered)
I highly doubt that would be the case. Train Simulator also had an accessible editor from the beginning, yet people still buy tons of payware content.
The key issue seems to be licensing issues that may turn up if you are using and releasing stuff branded for which you have no explicit license agreement. It the time the TSxxxx editor was released, this was not yet an issue but now it is a big problem. The other thing is the complexities of the editor. The learning curve is even steeper than for TSxxxx. you need a fairly high skill level to make anything that actually makes other people happy. This is true for locos (can you program Simugraph and get sound working?) as for routes.
